I'm bored working at Stanford Library, so I invent a detective game and enlist my co-workers to play, skulking around the library looking for clues. But I forgot to plant all the evidence, and I never really plotted the mystery out, just focused on vivid sexy characters and lots of atmosphere--the excitement our jobs lack.

Meanwhile, in the card catalog, the Goddess gives birth. Well, that's normal of course, but she does it upside down: head on the rug, leaning against the cabinets in a sort of shoulder stand, trickling blood on the terminals. The baby crowns and enters this world upright. This disorients her bird-baby, so it flies off the wrong way, to Earth, not Heaven.

I listen to a woman tell this heroic myth as I paste up green wallpaper exactly on a line that means midnight.

The Goddess is in poor shape; it was a hard birth. That sharp bird-baby beak must have hurt! I massage her, stroking her inner thighs. Mmm, so sexy. Except for the blood and beak-nips. I say "You must keep your feet up, to help your circulation."

But she says "That's impossible; we have no furniture."

Cabinets are all around, but she's the Goddess; she tells the truth. So cabinets aren't furniture now, and I accept defeat, and say "I accept de feet," and just massage them.

I try to suggest foods that'd help bring her postpartum strength back up, but the Goddess says "Chris, I'm really not in the mood to hear about food just yet."

An orgy begins, due to the Goddess's fever dream. She dreams the world, and right now, she's a bit off. Still, I try to organize it before all the librarians pile on. No reason we should live a sloppy feverdream!

So I assign all the demigods and librarians to small-orgy groups, who slink into the book-stacks and hump each other, and, of course, the headless dolls, according to the secret rituals.

Now each group is sailing a boat on the sea. It's a regatta and we're hunting for a floating prize. First to bring it in, wins! The treasure: the fuzzy tassel from Jacques Cousteau's hat! How nautical can you get? I grab it from a woman at the last moment. She chases me as I skate over the water like Jesus on ice, back to my ship. I fooled her with the red tassel from MY old fuzzy hat.

She should have known. I mean, that's... old hat.

A NOTE ADDED 2001

Some readers have refused to believe my dreams are dreams. Too long and coherent. What they describe as "real" dreams were more like... well, this. So I just thought I'd demonstrate that I do dream abortive messes too. I just didn't bother typing many up for you.

Because tumbling around with a boogie board in the surf zone like this can be fun, but I'm trying to show you that beyond the shore are calmer and much deeper waters. And across the waters... other lands.